Film Reviews

Posted: Tue., Dec. 31, 1963, 11:00pm PT

Bedtime Story

Universal. Director Ralph Levy; Producer Stanley Shapiro; Screenplay Stanley Shapiro, Paul Henning; Camera Clifford Stine; Editor Milton Garruth; Music Hans J. Salter; Art Director Alexander Golitzen, Robert Clatworthy
Marlon Brando David Niven Shirley Jones Dody Goodman Aram Stephan Marie Windsor
Bed time Story will divert the less discriminating, although there are times when even such major league performers as Marlon Brando and David Niven have to strain to sustain the overall meager romantic comedy material.

Some of the lines snap and crackle, and several of the situations (done with slapstick overtones) in which Brando and Niven find themselves involved as conmen in competition on the French Riviera are broadly funny.

The screenplay has Niven as a bigtime operator and Brando a relatively petty practitioner of the confidence art who comes to challenge the 'king of the mountain' in his own background. The mercenary contest centers around 'American soap queen' Shirley Jones, who turns out to be merely the penniless winner of a soap queen contest.

Brando wins the girl, but he loses the histrionic contest to Niven, whose effortless flair for sophisticated comedy is not matched by his co-star.

(Color) Available on VHS. Extract of a review from 1964. Running time: 99 MIN.

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